You thought the same thing about Syria but you capitulated to Assad and gave up territory just a few months ago. The more you put yourselves up for adventures, the more the national shame you will feel when losing and the more the evil you will be doing, you have gone down a dark path attacking all your neighbours. You have no international support by anybody, no Russia, no America, no Europe, no China.

You have set yourselves up for ridicule and failure. And no good will come of this.

Let's not make assumptions or fast conclusions. Because he still hasn't lost.

Al Asaba was captured two days ago. Large sways of Haftar-held territories in south of Tripoli is being overrun by GNA forces today. Unless something ultra-drastic happens, Tarhuna will fall within days.

That will be the end of the war in western Libya, but the onset of the war in and around Sirte and Fezzan.

Haftar is a dead man walking.

GNA may have numerical and technological advance, but Haftars forces are battle hardened warriors,

The core of Haftar's forces is nothing but mercenary companies imported from here and there. The rest is local tribal militia aligned with him for time being.

Shrink, tyrant, from my words of fire! And tremble at a poet's ire! -FERDOWSI

Because GNA army is composed of proffesional Western standards units?They are on the same level as Haftar, but maybe even worse because they trust turks to command and train their troops And no not really, the battle for west Libya isn't nearly over yet, look what I said earlier

The only thing giving GNA an advantage is they got better equipment and more men than haftar. If it werent for the turks giving them 1/5th of their uav stockpile and hundreds of weapons, mbt, armored vehicles and bring in around 10k Syrian fighters etc then gna army would have been in worse situation than haftar.This war is more like an oneeyed man fighting a full blind man than a lion fighting bear.

Classic Turkish strategy used since their birth , only way to have a chance of winning is they are 10 to 1 with their enemies. And even then only if they got better and more advanced equipment from their foes

Which reminds of an other thing. Turkey supposed to bring stability right? Well can you explain me how bringing thousands of jihadists from Syria to fight in Libya helps anyhow in stability? It seems to me that this only will cause more chaos than stability though. Do you guys do this on purpose or is your Turkish goverment just a two-faced weasel?

Hellas me ponas wrote:Well although that is true and indeed under ottoman empire the balkans were one of the most prosperous regions of the planet at that time, that only lasted until 1566 (Suleiman's the Magnificent death), because after that when the ottoman state started failing and declining that also had social and economic effect on the peoples who lived under ottoman rule (including the middle east). Middle East is what it is today for 2 reasons, 1st The ottoman corrupted and declining state 2nd the Europeans who decided to keep the Sick Man of Europe alive because they had no idea on how to split it, thus middle east and balkams kept on being ruled by a tottaly failed, corrupted and inefficient state for another 350 years.

I think the decline of the Muslim world may have started with the Ottoman conquest. The Ottomans were nomads that expanded from Asia Minor after the collapse of the Mongol empire. Like the Mongols, they were good at conquering culturally more advanced people around the Mediterranean. In the East, the Mongols and Manchus conquered China to rule the country as a foreign warrior class. In the West, the Ottomans did the same to the MENA. During the Yuan (Mongol) and Qing (Manchu) dynasties Chinese culture stagnated and fell behind the West. While Ottoman rule managed to administer a huge empire, it failed to renew the cultural and scientific traditions of the Arab golden age.

While the European Renaissance took a giant step forward with book printing and other innovations, the Ottomans prohibited the printing press, and even though they imported innovative technology from Europe, like cannon building, they failed to develop these technologies while European powers continually improved their technology.

As a small foreign ruling class, these nomad warriors were more interested in consolidating their power than in cultural or scientific innovations to improve their nation in the competition with other nations.

This makes one wonder if people ever learn. Erdogan is turning his back on science, preferring obscure theories and the teaching of jihad to the teaching of evolution. Talented academics in Turkey are driven into internal or external exile or put into prison.

skinster wrote:Perhaps that's true, but unsure this has anything to do with my comment.

@Potemkin

Lybie is indeed a perfect example of creative chaos. The objective in Lybia wasn't imperealism, it was simply to get rid of Qadaffi and destabilise the country so it won't resist the French. The main reasons Qadaffi was killed is because he was resisting French influence in Africa and was putting a wrench in their plans.

I do not think that any nation is hopeless to change; however, I think that some nations do require a lot more effort than others to become changed. - Verv

Lybie is indeed a perfect example of creative chaos. The objective in Lybia wasn't imperealism, it was simply to get rid of Qadaffi and destabilise the country so it won't resist the French. The main reasons Qadaffi was killed is because he was resisting French influence in Africa and was putting a wrench in their plans.

Indeed. It was Sarkozy who was the main driving force behind the destruction of Qadaffi's Libya (both the regime and the nation). Sarkozy got the Brits on board, who in turn got the Americans on board, and then it was on....

"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." - Marx (Groucho)

Potemkin wrote:Indeed. It was Sarkozy who was the main driving force behind the destruction of Qadaffi's Libya (both the regime and the nation). Sarkozy got the Brits on board, who in turn got the Americans on board, and then it was on....

To be honest getting the Germans on board was far more important because Merkel convinced Putin not to veto. After that it was a clear road with a green light.

I do not think that any nation is hopeless to change; however, I think that some nations do require a lot more effort than others to become changed. - Verv

Atlantis wrote:I think the decline of the Muslim world may have started with the Ottoman conquest. The Ottomans were nomads that expanded from Asia Minor after the collapse of the Mongol empire. Like the Mongols, they were good at conquering culturally more advanced people around the Mediterranean. In the East, the Mongols and Manchus conquered China to rule the country as a foreign warrior class. In the West, the Ottomans did the same to the MENA. During the Yuan (Mongol) and Qing (Manchu) dynasties Chinese culture stagnated and fell behind the West. While Ottoman rule managed to administer a huge empire, it failed to renew the cultural and scientific traditions of the Arab golden age.

While the European Renaissance took a giant step forward with book printing and other innovations, the Ottomans prohibited the printing press, and even though they imported innovative technology from Europe, like cannon building, they failed to develop these technologies while European powers continually improved their technology.

As a small foreign ruling class, these nomad warriors were more interested in consolidating their power than in cultural or scientific innovations to improve their nation in the competition with other nations.

This makes one wonder if people ever learn. Erdogan is turning his back on science, preferring obscure theories and the teaching of jihad to the teaching of evolution. Talented academics in Turkey are driven into internal or external exile or put into prison.

Totally true. That's also the reason the young turks were founded, their goal is to approach a more western type of state and organisation. That's why kemals reforms were so important to Turkey, as was the reforms of Peter The Great to Russia. He basically tried to modernise Turkish society and state. Although he succeeded in the western parts of the country (Istanbul, Izmir, Bursa etc), unfortunately he failed o accomplish the same with the rest of the country. Reason for this was and is, that only west Turkey is urbanised and has connections with the outside world, for example Istanbul is indeed a very cosmopolitan and westernised city. The rural east and central Turkey was consisted of village type societies and hardcore Muslim uneducated farmer populations. Until this very day its no wonder why AK party votes all come from central and East Turkey.

Potemkin wrote:Indeed. It was Sarkozy who was the main driving force behind the destruction of Qadaffi's Libya (both the regime and the nation). Sarkozy got the Brits on board, who in turn got the Americans on board, and then it was on....

Oh, the deviousness of the perfidious Albion! The Anglo imperialists are behind the neocon plan of "7 countries in 5 years". That's not the fault of the French, that's not even the fault of the Dutch. It's a matter of historical fact that the British tried to pull the French and others into the invasion of Iraq and attempted regime change in Syria. The British even used the Libyan dissident jihadists they had cultivated for years. After being prevented from leaving the UK for years, they were suddenly encouraged to return home for toppling Qaddafi. It's a classical British imperial playbook scenario.

The deception used by the Anglos in their historical revisionism is astonishing. That degree of self-deception can only be explained by intellectual inbreeding.

noemon wrote:You thought the same thing about Syria but you capitulated to Assad and gave up territory just a few months ago. The more you put yourselves up for adventures, the more the national shame you will feel when losing and the more the evil you will be doing, you have gone down a dark path attacking all your neighbours. You have no international support by anybody, no Russia, no America, no Europe, no China.

You have set yourselves up for ridicule and failure. And no good will come of this.

Turkey did not capitulate to anyone. Turkey's operation in Idlib left thousands of Assad and Iranian troops dead and Russian systems broken. Turkey retreated because of risk of dicrect conflict arose betwwen Turkey and Russia. We have some purchase agreements with Russian which we did not want to risk for now.

We will hit harder when it is right time, no matter who we are facing.

Istanbuller wrote:Turkey did not capitulate to anyone. Turkey's operation in Idlib left thousands of Assad and Iranian troops dead and Russian systems broken. Turkey retreated because of risk of dicrect conflict arose betwwen Turkey and Russia. We have some purchase agreements with Russian which we did not want to risk for now.

We will hit harder when it is right time, no matter who we are facing.

Thousands of dead Syrians and Russians? That's the numbers they claim in Turkey? Well reality is that Erdogan lost couple of hundred Turkish soldiers and dozens of uavs down there and gained literally zero outcome . Thus he decided to "Co operate" with Mother Russia, so the death rate of turks won't cause a national outcry against him. You see once again your propaganda try to illustrate reality and make it look like you win everywhere, while in reality, you have lost so much you can't keep up. You losing in Syria and now you also losing in Libya, Haftar has already started counter attacks and your advance has been halted.

As I said before Haftar and his commanders know the "art" of war inside out, because that's what they have been doing for the last 30 years. "Make it look like you are weak when you're strong and look like strong when you're weak." Haftar has played you so good you still can't see the storm that is coming